detached from India to Egypt; and I shall look anxiously for the early return of the army, which has been spared from the defence of these possessions. It will undoubtedly be prudent to leave a considerable garrison at Suez; but I trust that a respectable squadron in the Red Sea will be added to our defences in that quarter, until the termination of the war shall relieve us from any apprehension of the activity and enterprize of France. I have the honour to be, &c. WELLESLEY. No. CLIV. The Marquess Wellesley to Harford Jones, Esq. Resident at Bagdad. SIR, Patna, 20th October, 1801. 1. Since the receipt of your despatches acknowledged by the Secretary to the Government, under date the 11th May, 1801, I have been favoured with your several official and private addresses noted in the margin.* 2. My acknowledgements are due for the various interesting communications contained in your despatches. 3. I received with much concern the accounts which your despatches and those of Mr. Manesty contain of the late extraordinary conduct of the Pasha of Bagdad. My early attention will be given to that subject, as well as to the consideration of the general condition of our political relations with the Pasha of Bagdad. I postpone the discussion of these subjects until I shall have communicated with Captain Campbell, to whom you refer me for information with respect to the actual state of affairs in that quarter. I expect him to join my suite within a short period of time. I have the honour to be, &c. WELLESLEY. * Official.-March 26th, 1801; do. do.; April 15th and 24th; May 12th, 14th, and 16th; and June 5th and 16th. Private.-May 12th, 13th, and 14th; and July 19th. No. CLV. The Marquess Wellesley to the Honourable the Secret Committee of the Honourable the Court of Directors. HONOURABLE SIRS, Patna, 21st October, 1801. At the moment of closing my letters intended for the present despatch overland, I received a letter from the Right Honourable the Governor in Council of Fort St. George, under date the 22nd ultimo, notifying the final conclusion and exchange of engagements between the Honourable Company and his Highness the Nabob Azeem oo Dowlah, and enclosing for my ratification two explanatory articles; which articles, according to my instructions, had been executed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council and hist Highness the Nabob Azeem oo Dowlah. 2. Being absent from the Presidency of Fort William on my progress towards the Upper Provinces, I have this day ratified the explanatory articles of the treaty of the Carnatic. 3. I request your honourable Committee to accept my congratulations on the conclusion of an arrangement which, while it is highly creditable to the justice and moderation of the British character, has happily established the rights and interests of the honourable Company in the Carnatic, upon the secure and permanent foundations of territorial possession; of exclusive civil and military government, and of undivided influence and power. It is a great satisfaction to have ultimately accomplished an object long and anxiously desired by the honourable Company, and earnestly recommended by the Court of Directors to my special attention, when I had the honour to receive the charge of this Government. Your honourable Committee is apprized of the early solicitude which I manifested for the accomplishment of this important measure upon my first arrival at Madras, in the month of April, 1798, as well as of the repeated attempts which I made on various occasions, in the years 1798 and 1799, to effect the same salutary arrangement. The successive failure of all those attempts, combined with the reflections arising from the equally unpropitious result of every preceding proposition of a similar nature, have enhanced in my mind the pleasure of witnessing the conclusion of the late treaty. The intimate connection of this happy event with the success of your arms in Mysore, forms a peculiar and interesting feature of the whole transaction. Nor can your honourable Committee fail to remark that the possession of the records of the House of Hyder Ally in disclosing to your Government the whole system of the policy of your enemies in India, is the source from which we have derived that information which has enabled us to complete the settlement of the Carnatic. 4. The introduction into the Carnatic of the wise and benevolent system of government to which these provinces are indebted for their present happiness and prosperity, will be the next object of my anxiety and care. The union of all local authorities, and the extinction of every principle of conflicting power, will preclude the operation of those causes of discord and counter-action which must ever have impeded the progress of good government in the Carnatic, while the administration of affairs continued in the hands of the Nabob. 5. I consider it a most grateful part of my duty to express to your honourable Committee the high sense which I entertain of the zeal, judgment, and temper, which have distinguished the conduct of Lord Clive and of the Government of Fort St. George, during the whole course of those important transactions and arduous negociations which have terminated in a manner so advantageous to the interests of the honourable Company in India. 6. To his Lordship's judicious exercise of the powers vested in him by my authority for the settlement of the affairs of the Carnatic, is principally to be ascribed the success of those measures which the treachery and ingratitude of their late Highnesses, the Nabobs Walahjah and Omdut ul Omrah, compelled me to adopt for the preservation of the rights and interests of the honourable Company in that country. 7. Justice to the merits of Mr. Webbe, Chief Secretary to Government at Fort St. George, and of Lieut.-Colonel Close, late resident in Mysore, requires me to express to your honourable Committee my cordial and grateful approbation of the important services rendered by those gentlemen to the public during the course of the late transactions and negociations at Fort St. George. The assistance which Lord Clive has derived from the zeal, talents, and knowledge of Mr. Webbe and of Lieut.-Colonel Close, contributed in an essential degree to the success of his Lordship's measures for the arrangement of affairs in the Carnatic. 8. The discretion manifested by those gentlemen in the conduct of the examination of Ghoolaum Ali and Ali Rezza, instituted by the Government of Fort St. George, under circumstances of peculiar delicacy and difficulty, deserve the highest applause. 9. I acknowledge with gratitude the assistance which I received from the abilities and local knowledge of Mr. Webbe, whom I directed to attend me at Fort William, for the purpose of aiding me in framing the system of measures to be adopted for the future administration of affairs in the Carnatic, in consequence of the detected treachery of their late Highnesses the Nabobs Walahjah and Omdut ul Omrah. 10. The obligations of public duty, and the most indispensable rules of justice, concur to demand from me a recorded testimony in favour of the indefatigable activity, powerful abilities, and proved integrity of Mr. Webbe, who adds to these qualities a most accurate knowledge of the Oriental languages and an intimate acquaintance with every branch of your affairs in the Peninsula. In confirming the honourable testimony afforded by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council of Fort St. George to the public merits and services of Mr. Webbe and Lieut.-Colonel Close, on the important occasion which attracted his Lordship's approbation, I consider it to be incumbent on me to solicit the special attention of your honourable Committee and of the Court of Directors to the unremitting exertions of Mr. Webbe in the service of the honourable Company since the commencement of the late war in Mysore; being satisfied, through the regular public channels of information, as well as by my personal observation, that the laborious industry of that gentleman has been employed with the most disinterested zeal and with great success to render himself an useful instrument, under the Government of Fort St. George, of promoting the interests of the honourable Company, of securing the integrity and vigour of the administration of Government, of improving the condition of our native subjects in the Peninsula, and of augmenting the reputation and honour of the British name in every part of the extensive dominions subject to the Presidency of Fort St. George. The Right Honourable Lord Lewisham to the Marquess Wellesley. MY DEAR LORD, India Office, London, June 11th, 1801. [Received in Nov. 1801.] I do myself the honour to address your Lordship for the purpose of announcing to you that, in consequence of the resignation of Mr. Dundas, his Majesty has been pleased to nominate me to the office of President of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India. Not having been for many years in habits of business, I should have felt more hesitation in taking upon me the responsibility accompanying that situation, if your high character and eminent abilities, (which an acquaintance of many years would have enabled me to appreciate, could any doubt upon that subject have now remained in the mind of any one individual), together with the entire support and confidence of my friend and predecessor Mr. Dundas, had not removed the weight of these objections which forced themselves strongly upon my mind at the moment when that office was offered to my acceptance. I beg leave at the same time to assure you that that system for the administration of the affairs of India which has been honoured by your support, and under which that country has risen to such an eminent degree of prosperity, is the system which no exertions on my part shall be wanting to support. I have the honour to be, My dear Lord, with the highest regard, your faithful, obedient servant, LEWISHAM. 2 a VOL. II. |